wedding

As you can imagine, I get a lot of emails about wedding venues. Here are five that caught my eye recently. A few are brand-new, so I don’t know a ton about them, but you can click through to learn more. CHICAGO: THALIA HALL Located in Chicago’s Pilsen neighborhood, Thalia Hall was built in 1892 as a performance hall modeled after Prague’s Opera House. It’s been vacant since the ’60s, but was recently restored to its original glory and reimagined as a rustic event space. THE CARIBBEAN: PARADISE BEACH NEVIS This new boutique villa resort opened in February.You had me at “Caribbean.” And “boutique.” And “resort.” SAVANNAH, GEORGIA: THE WHITMAN MANSION You and a dozen-ish guests can stay in the mansion—so fancy!—where you can also host your wedding for up to 120 people. (Or a low-country boil rehearsal dinner. Yum.) PUERTO RICO: CONDADO VANDERBILT Built in 1919 by Frederick William Vanderbilt, the Condado offers old-world grandeur and contemporary sophistication. HOLLYWOOD, FLORIDA: MARGARITAVILLE HOLLYWOOD BEACH RESORT This place isn’t even open yet—the picture is a rendering—but I kind of want to host a low-key beach wedding on that pool deck. (Perhaps the 30-degree temps are finally getting to me? Margarita, anyone?) read more

It’s awful when a parent or grandparent—or any loved one—can’t be with you on your wedding day. On a very, very happy day when you’re celebrating with so many people you love, you’ll certainly have a few wistful moments missing any who can’t be there. And while you’ll want to honor anyone who can’t travel or who’s “there in spirit,” you also don’t want to turn your wedding into a sob-fest. So I think the key is to keep the sentimental details subtle, instead of front and center, like this groom did. A photo posted by Rose Gold Events (@rosegoldevents) on Feb 26, 2015 at 2:45pm PST See the tiny picture on this groom’s boutonniere? It’s a picture of his mom. (I spotted it on APW’s Instagram.) The event planner who first posted it didn’t mention if his mother was at the wedding, but I think it works either way. I also like when brides and grooms save a seat for someone who can’t be there, either with a bouquet of mom or grandma’s favorite flowers or a framed photograph in the front row. Will anyone important to you miss your wedding day? read more

Blergh: Allison Williams—who’s been engaged to College Humor cofounder Rick Van Veen since last February—said last night in a sit-down with Seth Meyers that her wedding has been postponed in light of her father Brian Williams’ suspension from NBC Nightly News. Between dealing with a family crisis and—Hello, Peter Pan—the actress said that her wedding plans have taken the back burner: “It's been a very full year,” she told Seth. “You sort of think, ‘What could possibly come along that would make me not think about this?’ And then I get Peter Pan and I think, ‘OK, I will think only about Neverland and then we'll go back to planning our wedding.’ Then current events started happening, so that derailed it a little bit, but it has been this really beautiful through line in our lives. It's just something we haven't focused on, but, spoiler alert, we are excited!” That’s Ricky on the left in the photo below. View image | gettyimages.com Obviously it’s all simultaneously frustrating and heartbreaking for a couple to put their nuptials on hold for major work and family upheavals, but it seems like they’re rolling with it in the most graceful manner possible. Thoughts on read more

When this photo popped into my Instagram feed last night, I was like, “This bride wrote the book on boho chic.” Elana and the girls #elanajaywedding #bridesmaids #white #palmbeachwedding A photo posted by Scott Surplice (@scottsurplicephotography) on Dec 12, 2014 at 12:17pm PST Let’s dissect: A white flower crown for the bride and bold blooms for her friends. Unfussy braids in everyone’s hair. Straight-out-of-Woodstock bridesmaid dresses. And yet, it’s all very well-considered. (Note: everyone’s matching bracelets.) No one looks messy or unkempt—which is an easy line for a flower-child bride to cross. This boho-chic parade didn’t happen by accident. Here are a few more pics I found by clicking through the wedding hashtag: 💕 @lana4d #elanajaywedding A photo posted by Lucy (@lucysandilands) on Dec 12, 2014 at 10:28pm PST Such a beautiful day #elanajaywedding A photo posted by Lucy (@lucysandilands) on Dec 12, 2014 at 10:10pm PST The Rodney's 🎩👰 #elanajaywedding @lana4d @jayrodz1985 A photo posted by Monique Dempsey (@moniqueannad) on Dec 12, 2014 at 2:53pm PST Per the comments, the bridesmaid dresses are For Love & Lemons, which is available stateside. The bride’s dress is by Grace Loves Lace, which we’ve discussed at length. Would you try to pull read more

As of our latest issue, chances are you’ve noticed a name change for me (check the byline!). That’s right—your girl got hitched! And it’s only right that I introduce you to the masterminds behind my look for the day I’ve felt more bella than ever. My wedding day! The Ceremony (Hair & Makeup By Me!) My husband (still getting used to that) and I rented a lakehouse in Oxford, MI, a small city outside of Detroit where he’s from, and invited our immediate family members to witness our vow exchange in a private ceremony. The twist? We made the decision to get baptized in the lake just after we said our “I do’s.” So, I decided to keep my hair sleek and makeup plan simple, neutral, and waterproof when possible. My Essentials: The Brow Groomer Smashbox Brow Tech To Go in Brunette, $27, smashbox.com The Foundation Giorgio Armani Luminessence CC Cream in 7, $50, giorgioarmanibeauty-usa.com The Concealer Bobbi Brown Face Touch Up Stick in Honey, $28, bobbibrowncosmetics.com The Mascara Benefit Cosmetics They’re Real! Beyond Mascara, $23, benefitcosmetics.com The Eyeliner Dior Crayon Eyeliner Waterproof in Trinidad Black, $29, sephora.com The Blush Revlon Cream Blush in Coral Reef, $3, at drugstores The read more

A few weeks ago I staged a top-secret photo shoot at Kleinfeld in NYC—best known as the set of your favorite show and mine: Say Yes to the Dress. (More on the shoot later.) While we were shooting I asked a staffer to let me play around with fancy bridal shoes, and lookie what I stumbled across: The shoes on the floor are Aruna Seth. (As soon as I know I’m within 100 yards of Aruna’s shoes, its like moths to a flame. “BRING THEM TO ME.”) And the one on my foot is Emmy London, a new-to-me brand that Kleinfeld’s fashion director, Terry Hall, thought I might be keen on. Could you just pass out and die from how gorgeous they are? I almost did. Here's more from Emmy. (The shoe above is the Cinderella. Fairy-tale princess, indeed.) Wedding Shoe 1 Francesca. Wedding Shoe 2 Cinderella. Wedding Shoe 3 Elizabeth. Wedding Shoe 4 Verity. If you click through the links, you’ll see the shoes are seriously spendy, but good lord, you could plan your whole wedding around them. I mean, your guests don’t REALLY need food, right? Click here to check out all the offerings from Emmy London. If read more

Summer means wedding season...and that means you're probably going to be eating a lot of wedding food in the next few months. It's delicious, for sure, and the bride and groom obviously put in months of thought picking out the perfect menu—so eating and celebrating is a definite do! But when it comes to navigating the buffet, you can still choose the healthier options, says Rania Batayneh, MPH, nutritionist and author of The One One One Diet. Here are some of her recs: Do: Glass of wine Don't: Cocktail "The problem with wedding cocktails is that you really have no idea what's in them—how much liquor, which mixers, any added sugar," she says. "Festive drinks are likely to have a lot of all three, contributing calories without any filling protein, fiber, or healthy fats." A glass of wine, though, is pretty consistent no matter what: Most reds and whites are about 100 to 125 calories per 5-ounce serving (dessert wines—such as port—have more though). Do: Chicken satay Don't: Coconut shrimp Summer weddings often feature more tropical flavors, so both of these are menu possibilities—but it's the chicken satay that Rania suggests. "While both proteins are relatively lean, coconut shrimp is read more

LIke a never-ending clown scarf, the details from the Kim Kardashian/Kanye West wedding keeps coming almost a week later. What we have for you this morning: The names of the exact hair and makeup products her glam team used on her on her big day. The fact that hairstylist Chris McMillan used Living Proof was basically a given—he's a partner in the company. But which specific products did he go for? He hashtagged a few specific products. For her ceremony look he used the Satin Hair Serum, which I'm personally a big fan of—makes your hair dry faster and tames flyaways. For the reception, look, he hashtagged #texture #flex, which translates into the following products: Living Proof Instant Texture Mist (coming out in September) and Living Proof Flex Shaping Hairspray. And this morning, her makeup artist, Mario Dedivanovic, spilled more about her makeup beyond the shading technique he used on her face. He gave the names of some of the makeup products he used—and they're surprisingly affordable for a girl who rented private jets to take her guests to another country for her ceremony. The details: On Kim's lips he used L'Oréal Paris Colour Riche Extraordinaire Lipstick in Nude Ballet, read more

And the details just keep comin'. Kim Kardashian's makeup artist Mario Dedivanovic sat down with Channel Nine's Mornings show in Australia to spill details about her wedding-day makeup. Watch: As we told you before, Kim's big open secret is sculpting via shading and contouring—a.k.a. using darling and lighter foundation and highlighter shades to exaggerate shadows and make the facial features seems more chiseled. In the clip, here's what he has to say about it: “Contouring frames the face and chisels the cheeks. So basically it's putting a little bit of bronzer on the hairline and jawline and on the hollows of the cheeks and the bridge of the nose. It thins out the face and gives warmth to the face." And it takes patience. He says, “Sometimes it takes 20 minutes, sometimes an hour. The most important is to blend, blend, blend.” Want to know more about Kim's blending secrets? Check out this old before/after she posted years ago and this clip of her contouring someone else's face during an interview. read more

I told you everything we knew over the weekend about how Kim Kardashian wore her hair and makeup to marry Kanye West in Italy, but we now know a little more thanks to Instagram photo-booth shots from the wedding guests as well as some blurry shots posted on Twitter by fans (check out this set for the best shots I've seen so far of her hair). Thank goodness for social media. UPDATE: Kim herself has posted official shots on Instagram. Behold: Here's a shot where you can see her ceremony hair and makeup: Her strong brow were on display (which makes sense because her brow lady Anastasia was there), and, as I predicted, her eyes were a touch smoky, her lips were nude, and her cheekbones were SCULPTED in all caps. As I told you earlier, Chris McMillan did her hair for the big day, and it was mostly down with a couple of pieces pinned back with a little height in the back to look romantic under her veil. And there was texture, but it wasn't full-on wavy. What I didn't call was that it was middle-parted—usually Chris goes to the side (I mean, when you have seen his read more

A few shots of what's rumored to be Kim Kardashian in her Givenchy gown at her wedding to Kanye West are hitting Twitter and Instagram, and although they're blurry, here's what they tell us about her hair and makeup: This shot is not of her on her wedding day—I repeat, this is an old picture. I chose it because it's close to what we're seeing in the photos. If you want to check out what she supposedly looked like in Italy today, you've got to click here and here's a shot of the back. Again, no confirmation that these shots are genuine, but they do look a lot like Kim. If they are, in fact, real, as I predicted, she went with a glowy, only slightly smoky look with a nude lip and her cheekbones on display (most likely all courtesy of Mario Dedivanovic). And her hair, reportedly styled by Chris McMillan was, as we also predicted if he was the one who ended up doing her hair, mostly down with a little texture—not quite wavy but not stick-straight either. It was pushed behind her shoulders and covered with a veil, with possibly a headband or a string of pearls read more

There are a lot of rumors to sort out about what will go down at the big Kim Kardashian-Kanye West wedding this weekend, but we do know a few things about the beauty looks we'll be seeing on the Kardashian-Jenner crew. Here's what we know: First, let's single out the bride herself. Kim. *Reportedly before she left Los Angeles for Paris she got a $500 stem-cell facial to get her skin glowing, so you can be sure her complexion is going to be on-point. As if there were any question. *Her makeup is going to be done by her longtime makeup artist, Mario Dedivanovic, and since he's a major fan of shading, so you can assume there will be face-sculpting GALORE. *On to hair. Although her longtime friend and hairstylist Jen Atkin is in Paris, my guess is that Kim's hair is going to be done by her recent fave Michael Silva, who did her hair for the Met Gala and the E! upfronts. Oh, and he just happens to be in Paris according to his Instagram account. Silva tends to focus on shine when it comes to Kim's hair, and we can assume there will not be one single read more

When you're planning a wedding, the date you choose is a huge factor—in fact, according to a recent survey by David's Bridal, 43 percent of brides say that they're planning their weddings around a special date. And there's a certain day this year on which David's Bridal says an estimated 20,000 couples will get married. And it's 12/13/14. Why? Not only does it fall on a Saturday, it's also the last consecutive date in the entire century—which is kind of mind-boggling to think about. According to David's Bridal, there was a huge upsurge of weddings that happened on other sequential dates—10/11/12, 11/12/13—even though they fell on weekdays, because some couples may consider these kinds of dates to be lucky (and, honestly, it certainly makes it easy to remember!). Would you (or did you!) plan your wedding around a specific date that means something to you? read more

As fabulous as it is to look at other people's wedding photos—because so many of them are spectacular—this is always something that's important to remember: For every gorgeous picture, there's one that went awry. Case in point: me and my husband. Let's try to figure out why we thought this was a good idea on our wedding day, shall we? ...right. Unintentionally hilarious, which is definitely an upside (I laugh whenever I see this pic—and the good news is that there were tons of lovely photos to supplement this one). So that's the first pose to avoid: looking like the floating heads of woodland elves, far from your spouse. Photographers often work with you based on certain time constraints, so it's good to have an idea of what might make for a great pose—while remembering what make for a bad one too. Luckily, pro photographers will know the difference. Bearing that in mind, here are some poses you might consider not striking during your wedding photo session. The Jumping-in-the-Air Pose: It can be done—and it can be done well!—but think about the physics at play, here. You're in a dress; action shots are challenging (especially when there are two people read more

File this under cool memories to keep: This past week I got the chance to test out a brand-new Zumba workout—Zumba Step, which combines Zumba's dance energy with aerobic step exercises—with the one-and-only Kelly Rowland. (She did the workout in HEELS.) And on her birthday, no less! I caught up with the engaged star beforehand to chat about her fitness routine for her upcoming nuptials and more. Listen in! Are you doing any special fitness routines to get wedding-dress-ready? Kelly: As a matter of fact I am, but it's more so just changing up my workout like I've always done. Jeanette Jenkins always says, "I believe in shocking the body!" So we do different types of workouts—from weights to dancing to running our mouth sometimes. [Laughs] We have a good time! She changes it up on me: sprinting, boxing one day, cardio, sculpt... What's your favorite type of workout? Kelly: I really, really love to move. You know what I mean? I mean, it's not a workout, but I absolutely love to do it, and that's performing, which is very close to doing Zumba. When you're onstage and you're moving everything, every single part of your body, it's actually working read more

Model Cara Delevingne took time out from her busy life of being one of the world's hottest models to attend big sister's Chloe's wedding this afternoon. Here's a snap Cara shared on Instagram. Chloe swapped vows with property broker Ed Grant in—according to the Daily Mail—"a low-key ceremony in London's Mayfair." Here's the MAJOR bridal fur she wore over her strapless dress (which I think is Marchesa) to brave the elements. I can never tell if fur is real or faux. Sorry. While I have your attention, I'll go ahead and zoom in on her engagement ring, which appears to feature an emerald. Purdy. Thoughts on Chloe Delevingne's bridal getup? read more

These beautiful wedding photos were sent to me along with a sweet, sweet love story. Enjoy! Daniel and Chandra chatted on Facebook before she agreed to a movie and ice cream with him. After their first date, she came home bawling her eyes out to her sister, who assumed the date had gone horribly wrong. So you can imagine her surprise when Chandra said, "I'm going to marry him. He's the one!" Fourteen months later, Daniel proposed—"a fairytale moment"—on top of the Tower of The Americas in San Antonio, Texas. They settled on a rustic-style venue, but three months shy of their wedding date, Chandra had a change of heart—about the venue. They were delighted when a family member offered to let them use a piece of property to host a garden-style wedding, and happily canceled their original venue. Two days later, the family member canceled on them, and they were out a venue. Yikes! And then they found exactly the venue they were looking for, Fair Oaks Ranch, a country club that Chandra's uncle was a member of. And Chandra got down to the business of planning their wedding, in less than three months and on a $10,000 budget. read more

Warm-weather wedding alert: Hangover star Justin Bartha swapped vows with personal trainer Lia Smith on the island of O'ahu in Hawaii at Kualoa ranch, E! News has confirmed. The wedding ceremony—witnessed by "no more than 20 people"—was reportedly held in the lagoon at the ranch, and the reception was held in the valley, which is also where Hunger Games recently filmed. Huh. Famous guests included Reese Witherspoon and her husband, Jim Toth. Here's a stalker-style wedding pick: Click here to read the full story. Thoughts on Justin Bartha and Lia Smith's Hawaii wedding? I'm so curious about her dress. I looks a little bit Monique Lhuillier, a little bit Ivy & Aster. I should know it (I recognize the bodice ruffle detail), but I just can't pin it down. I also checked Sarah Seven, Watters, and Wtoo. Frustrating. Anywho, congrats, kids! read more

Mean Girls' Lacey Chabert tied the knot over the holidays! An hour ago she sent out this tweet: I'm starting off 2014 as a Mrs! Over the holidays, my best friend & love of my life...we became husband & wife! #soblessed #love— Lacey Chabert (@IamLaceyChabert) January 3, 2014 Quickly followed by this post on Instagram: According to Us Weekly, famous guests included Kaley Cuoco, her sister Briana Cuoco, 8 Simple Rules actress Amy Davidson, and Bachelorette alum Ali Fedotowsky. Lacey's reportedly keeping the name of her groom under wraps. Thoughts on Lacey Chabert's wedding? I like the sparkly details on her wedding dress! Congrats! read more